[learning grace all over again]

Two convictions today:

One is the following quote - "Giving what you've got is probably not enough in your mind, but God can make it. Keep on believing He will, and watch what God can do." Our speaker this morning was talking about Jesus turning five loaves of bread and two fish into enough food to feed a crowd of 5,000 (Mark 6:33-44), but it hit me in regards to my struggle yesterday. It's hard to understand why God lets so much hurt persist and know that I can't do much to help alleviate it, but today I was convicted in the Word and by that quote up above.

God knows there are hurts. God knows there are needs. And as a short-sighted human, it's easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged when we wonder why He's not meeting them. Soothing them. Changing them. So then we take it on ourselves to fix it. Change it. Alter it. Yet God never asked us to. He asked us to give what we have to help, and He'll make it enough for the purpose He's called us to. He fed the 5,000. He will end the suffering of this world. And I was not made to tell Him what He's not doing.

This leads me to conviction two - letting Him work rather than taking it on myself to try and solve. Tonights talk was about grace, and it was really humbling. God's free gift of salvation to all who call on Him as Lord is grace in it's purest and simplist form, and it's the foundation of what it means to follow Him. It's the message Christians have been called to share. The core of everything followers of Christ are supposed to be about. Yet I think it's also one of the easiest things to become numb to, as we hear it over and over again and forget it's true power in our lives.

Because truthfully, it doesn't matter how much I learn out here this summer. It doesn't matter how many people I share the gospel with. It doesn't matter how right I try to live, how much I pray, how devoted my quiet times are. Serving doesn't count. Spiritual disciplines don't count. Worship doesn't count. None of it counts in the end because none of that saves me or makes me a better Christian or person.

Grace does. Undeserved and unearned salvation regardless of who I am or am not. Regardless of how I succeed or fail. Regardless of what I do or don't. Yet how easy is it to forget that when I, when all of us, become so wrapped up in trying to serve God that we forget the reason why we're even able to? We serve because He served us. We pour grace on others because we're drowning in it. We're not worthy of anything more than the next person over, and I'm still learning that.

And even though I know there's a lot of time left out here, I've realized once again that living as a follower of Jesus all comes back to the basics. Loving God comes first. Then out of that love will come missions, service, worship, the answers to life's questions, everything. But it starts and ends with the basic message of the cross and God's grace to us through that gift. Rather than just a one time deal, it's learning the beauty of that gift over and over and over again, and I've still got a long way to go.